How can we design a life-shaping learning experience that promotes analytical skills for the youth?

Big Data Challenge – A 3-day learning challenge that promotes analytical and digital skills for the youth in an engaging and impactful format.

Spain, 2018 – 2021   |   Client: EduCaixa (Fundació LaCaixa)

My role: Designer, coach and challenge coordinator, in collaboration with Alwa Emprendizaje. In 2018, I was a challenge coach. In 2019, I was a challenge coach and I designed the learning tools. In 2020 and 2021, I was a challenge coordinator, designing materials, briefing invited speakers, coaching and managing the challenge coaches, and leading teacher sessions.

THE BRIEF

EduCaixa is one of the most impactful organisations promoting educational innovation in Spain – in 2016 alone, it reached 2,3 million students nationally through their learning programmes. In 2013, they launched a new learning challenge inviting selected projects across the country in order to motivate schools to use their free learning programmes.

In this context, our brief was to build a learning challenge from scratch for the Big Data learning programme, which aimed to promote digital and analytical skills among students. The challenge would bring together students from all over the country in an intensive 3-day experience that promoted learning and fun, and that was so inspiring that made the community grow each year. The first pilot was in 2018, and since then, each year we hosted more students, integrated improvements, such as new learning tools and experiences, or adapted to unforeseen situations like Covid-19 and the need to bring the challenge online.

THE FINAL RESULT

A 3-day challenge bringing together 100 students from 25 schools across Spain, and including different types of activities: inspirational talks by leading industry stakeholders, working time with the support of their assigned coaches, and leisure activities to connect with other students. Click the image to see the detail:

THE JOURNEY

We started off with a pilot in 2018 to define formats and contents, we expanded and improved it in 2019, and we adapted to new online and hybrid formats in 2020 and 2021. See the visual below for more detail on the journey and materials developed throughout. Click the image to see the detail:

THE FOUR EDITIONS

(videos developed by the EduCaixa team, 2018 to 2022 editions)